> I've always wondered what happened to Channel 1 as a viable> television channel. Is there a substantial reason behind this?> I am very interested in this particular issue and if anyone> could provide me with any information pertaining to this> subject I would greatly apprecaite it.

> Along this line, and at the risk of perhaps being slightly OT,> if anyone knows why television uses channels while radio uses> frequencies (for the most part, that is, the 88 channel) FM> Marine Band in the 156 MHz range being an exception), I would> be interested in hearing about it.

Back in the early days of radio (before Congress enacted the Radio Act
of 1927), broadcasting was a free-for-all. Domestic frequency
assignments were made by the Department of Commerce on a more or less
first-come-first-served basis. Many foreign governments didn't even
have a mechanism for assigning frequencies; some stations, operating
without (or ignoring) governmental authority, simply picked their own
frequencies. Even the boundaries of specific "bands" (as we use the
term today) weren't uniformly defined. Given the chaotic nature of
things, it's not surprising that the Commerce Department didn't assign
channel numbers.

The legacy of this chaos lives on to this day: we still use frequency
designations in the domestic AM broadcast band and the international
shortwave bands.

In order to impose some sort of order on the situation, Congress
enacted the Radio Act of 1927, creating the Federal Radio Commission.
A few years later, it enacted the Communications Act of 1934, which
created the Federal Communications Commission to replace the FRC.
Both commissions were charged with responsibility for managing the
radio spectrum.

Over the years, the FCC's frequency-assignment policies have evolved
into three patterns:

====== ASSIGNMENT by BAND ======

In some bands, the FCC simply assigns the entire band to a specific
service, and leaves it up to licensees to assign specific frequencies
within the band. Examples of this policy include the amateur radio bands,
the common-carrier satellite C- and Ku-bands, and the DBS bands.

====== ASSIGNMENT by FREQUENCY AS CHANNEL NUMBER ======

In some bands, the FCC assigns "channel" numbers to specific frequency
blocks, but uses the center frequency of the block as the channel
number. Examples:

One additional FM Channel (200, at 87.9 MHz) has been assigned since
the original assignments were made. It overlaps TV Channel 6;
consequently, its use is limited to certain types of stations (see
footnote \1\ at 47 CFR 73.501).

Once the FCC finally established television channel assignments, the
broadcast and receiver-manufacturing industries adopted them.

But these industries didn't adopt the FM channel assignments. Why
not? There's no single reason, but I suspect that it was largely a
matter of cultural inertia: broadcasters had been using AM frequency
designations for years, and they simply continued the practice with
FM.

Furthermore, even by the late 1940s, there was still a lot of
confusion about channel assignments (as the aforementioned article by
David Ferre makes clear). Receiver manufacturers who had been
building FM radios (before channel assignments were finalized) had
been using frequency designations by default. Apparently they just
continued doing so.

This legacy too lives on to this day: we still use channel numbers for
TV and frequency designations (albeit in megahertz rather than
megacycles) for FM.

Television stations brand their channel numbers: "Local 2";
"Virginia's 13"; "CBS-19"; etc. As brand names, these numbers are so
important that many television stations don't even use their actual
call signs. Stations even demand that CATV and DBS companies identify
them by their channel numbers, even though the actual RF frequencies
may be different.

Carrying this branding game to extreme, most television stations plan to
continue using their old analog channel numbers as their DTV "channels,"
even if they move to new channels for DTV. Receiver manufacturers have
included mapping logic to display the old numbers. Thus, for example,
WISC-TV Channel 3 will become WISC-DT Channel 50, but receivers will
display 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, etc. to identify the various video streams.